Conventionally, in the production of consumable goods such as food or meat products, the food is fed (typically pumped) or stuffed into a casing in a manner that allows the casing to fill with a desired amount of the product. The casing can be produced so that it is sealed at selected locations to form a series of single discrete products or a series of linked “chubs.”
One manner of producing a packaged product employs a piece goods packaging machine that can form a single or discrete packaged product or chub. In operation, a first clip is applied to the beginning portion of the casing, the casing is filled with product, and then a second clip is applied to the end portion of the casing. The process is repeated to provide a series of discrete piece good packaged products.
Another way of producing a packaged product employs a shirred casing machine that can be configured to produce a series of single products or a series of chained products. In operation, a clip is applied to the beginning portion of a casing and food is pumped into the casing and the filled casing is moved downstream from the filling point. The filling can be interrupted momentarily while excess product is voided (pushed away from a clip zone on the package) and two clips can be applied concurrently to the casing at proximate but spaced apart lateral locations in the clip zone. A knife is used to separate the casing between the two concurrently applied clips to produce a sealed single package. This region between the two clips is sometimes described as the “tail” or end of the package. The first or forwardmost of the two clips forms the end of the forward (first) sealed product and the second or rearwardmost of the two clips forms the beginning of the next upstream package, which is now ready for filling which is restarted.
For certain consumable products, such as meat and/or sausage, there is often a desire to produce a series of closed packages that are linked or chained together. Thus, similar to the shirred single piece production method, two clips can be applied concurrently to a voided casing region, which action is repeated a number of times before cutting any of the links to generate a series or chain of linked “chubs.” Thus, in operation, a desired number of chubs can be serially produced to form the desired length of product or number of chubs. This process can be described as a “chubbing operation.” After the desired length of product and/or number of chubs is generated, the casing is voided and the two clips are concurrently applied to the casing as described above. The knife is then directed to cut the chain at the tail and start a new chain of linked product. The linked or chained products are typically vertically suspended together for further processing. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,543,378, 5,167,567, 5,067,313, and 5,181,302, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.
During a conventional chubbing operation, an unused (non-stuffed) length of casing or packaging material extends outwardly from the enclosed product between the first and second concurrently applied clips. The amount of unused length of casing can vary depending on the packaging machine, the type of package and/or product.
In certain applications, it is desirable to reduce the amount of unused lengths of casing to be able to do one or more of: reduce product costs (material cost savings), increase the amount of yield in the cooking facility, and suspend additional amounts of product or numbers of chubs on or in conventional racks for increased space utilization.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,495,701 proposes a clip attachment mechanism for fastening a single clip or two clips simultaneously. The mechanism has two punches, one of which is driven directly by a pneumatic cylinder and the other of which is connected to the first punch using a pin and key assembly. The pin and key assembly allows the punches to be coupled or decoupled to the pneumatic cylinder drive to apply one single clip or two clips simultaneously. U.S. Pat. No. 5,586,424 proposes an apparatus for movement of U-shaped clips along a rail. The apparatus includes a clip feed for advancing clips on a guide rail and the arm is reciprocally driven by a piston and cylinder arrangement. The contents of each of these patents are hereby incorporated by reference as if recited in full herein.
Despite the foregoing there remains a need for devices and methods that can provide reduced amounts of unused casing material between adjacent sealed products and or additional links in a chain having a desired length for increased processing efficiency.